Joe Kelly: It’s a revenge story set in the Great Depression in
Brooklyn. It’s about a boy who’s trying to get back at a gang that’s
directly responsible for his dad’s death. But the world in which they
live is a world where underground dragon fighting is entertainment for
the masses.

NRAMA: So it’s 1930’s Brooklyn – but with dragons…

JK:
[laughs] Yeah – they’re the pitbulls of the world. The kid’s dad dies
while trying to get a dragon egg for this heavy duty boss. Once the kid
realized what his dad did, and the sacrifices he was making, not to
mention the things he was doing just to help his family, he gets really
pissed and decides that he wants vengeance against this gangster. Thing
is, he’s only about ten.

But he manages to get his hands on a runt – a disfigured dragon, and
decides to train it up, fight his way through the ranks, and take this
guy down. That’s it in a nutshell.

NRAMA: And the title?

JK: Oh yeah – the dragon has four eyes. Literally. It’s been
deemed to be an “un-fightable” dragon – it can’t see right, and it just
doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, really. It’s like a hard-luck
boxing story from the ‘30s, but with crazy cock fighting, and instead of roosters, we have dragons.

NRAMA: Mixing gangsters with boxers, I can see…but mixing them
with underground dragon fighting…that’s certainly a unique twist. Where
did that all start to come together for you?

JK:
Somewhere along the line, I was on a trip in Europe and I was talking
to someone about kooky projects that we were thinking of, and I just
got hooked on the idea of dragons and Tommy guns. I liked the idea of
seeing, “I’m on top of the world ma!” and then a dragon coming in and
biting the guy in half. The image stuck, and I thought it was cool, but
I didn’t know what to do with it, so I just sat on it for a while, and
then met this artist Max Fiumara, who drew Infinity Inc. and Blackgas
for Warren Ellis. I thought he had a pretty cool style, and I talked to
him about it. He was interested, and I said, look, if we’re going to do
this, I don’t want you to play it straight. You should really enjoy it
– it can be more cartoony, and the characters can be more expressive,
because it’s such a weird world.

So this style that he’s doing these dragons in is just unbelievable –
the dragons are very crazy real looking, and the characters are much
more expressionistic, with a little more squash and stretch to them. I
pointed toward Blacksad and a couple of other European books for Max to get some inspiration. So far, he’s knocking it out of the park.

Yeah – ten year old boy, learns the dark side of revenge and takes part in underground dragon fighting.

NRAMA: A story for the kids…

JK: [laughs] Yeah – really. Originally we were just going to do
it as a one-off a larger graphic novel, but when I started see these
dragons, and thought about the training of the dragons, and the battles
– kind of like an epic boxing story, and all the things he’s going to
do, and the compromises he’s going to have to make in order to get
closer to this gangster…he has to become something of a monster himself
in the process.

I like stories with young protagonists – I like to put my characters
through the wringer. Really dark stuff happens with this kid – he’s
chosen a really nasty path, so ultimately it’s a story of trying not to
become the thing you hate, and we’ve got a lot of room to tell it.

NRAMA: Joe – you’re a father yourself. This and your other recent creator-owned work, I kill Giants, not to mention your contributions to Ben10
with Man of Action all have younger protagonists. Do you find yourself
writing for your kids more these days, than say, for the in-joke
getting, continuity-versed fan?

JK: It’s funny – it’s a mix. What Giants is also
ultimately about, and what her secret is, and what’s going on in her
life…it’s a real accessible story. That book probably skews more for a
teenager and up reader, while Four Eyes is pretty dark – this kid’s dad is eaten on page three, so we’re not messing around. So…they’re not exactly for
my kids, but they heavily, heavily influence where the stories are
coming from. There’s a lot of my daughter – not so much how she is now,
but ways that she could be – in this character. And another book that I
have coming out later this year or early next is a bona-fide children’s
book - Douglas Fredericks and the House of They drawn by Dave Roman.

But yeah – I guess I am kind of a shallow writer [laughs] I was a
newlywed, and was writing Superman, so I focused on the Lois and Clark
relationship – that was very easy for me to put myself into; so even
though it’s not directly my kids, I’m using the feelings that they can
invoke in me as fuel. But I wouldn’t necessarily see them as being for
my kids.

NRAMA: You said you have another project coming this fall – is
this vein of creator-owned books something you see yourself staying in
for a while, while keeping your toes in the super-hero realm with
Spider-Man and other projects?

JK: Yeah. I look back on the comics I’ve done, and I’m very,
very proud of the stuff I’ve done so far, but my one regret is that I
haven’t done more creator-owned stuff earlier. I wish by this point I’d
have a thicker library of weird and fun “Joe Kelly” books. So, I guess
I’m doing it now, based where I am with other work, and what
opportunities are here. And you’re right – I’ll keep a foot in the
“mainstream” comics with things like Spider-Man, but we have such a
gift with this medium of the stories we can tell. I know there
are people out there who want to read these stories, so if I can find
them and they can find me, I’m a happy guy.

What’s been really exciting has been finding that these projects are
reaching out – Ken has connections with publishers in Europe, so Giants already has life over there, and I’m sure the same will happen with Four Eyes.
The world is so much smaller than it can feel when you’re working on a
Marvel or a DC project. You know the audience is out there, but you
really don’t have communication with or access to those markets. Now,
all of a sudden, you’re doing an independent book, and if you can sell
something to Spain, and sell something to France, it keeps those
projects afloat maybe longer than they could have if you were just
looking at the American market. That’s very exciting to me – the models
as to how we’re going to put these books out has expanded a bit, and if
we can make a little bit of money telling the stories we want to tell,
and not totally being shackled by marketing demands, I think that’s
great – you want to be able to help shape a market, not be forced to
fit into a market that is inflexible.